See This Dad’s Surprising Rules For Dating His Daughter

As a parent, the thought of your children out in the dating world can be a scary one. One father posted his rules for dating his daughter online, and the post has gone viral.

Jeffrey Warren Welch is a poet and writer. He generally goes by J. Warren Welch for his work. Welch decided to make his opinions on his daughter’s dating life public by sharing them in a Facebook post. Instead of providing specifics on how to take his daughter out, Welch gave a refreshing take that counters the stereotypical overprotective father tropes.

He wrote,”Rules for dating my daughters: you’ll have to ask them what their rules are. I’m not raising my little girls to be the kind of women who need their daddy to act like a creepy possessive bada** in order for them to be treated with respect. You will respect them, and if you don’t, I promise they won’t need my help putting you back in your place. Good luck pumpkin.”

Welch lives in Tennessee with his with Natasha. He has three daughters between the ages of seven and sixteen while Natasha has a 12-year-old and a 16-year-old. Since he must work within the confines of a mixed relationship, Welch told the Huffington Post that being a house with so many women has helped him learn about feminism and that he is “still learning.” He said that he came up with his dating guidelines after discussions with other dads and his disagreement with the glorification of the non-approving father on social media.

Welch said, ““I definitely know what a more misogynistic parenting style looks like when I see it, and I react against that, to be certain, but I’m also learning more and more every day about the true meaning of male privilege, and the subconscious ways it can creep into my own thinking, even as someone who desperately wants to be an ‘ally’ not only to my daughters but to all women.”

The post is similar to another dad’s post from 2014 in which he wore a shirt with the rules for dating his daughter that said, “she makes the rules.” Welsh’s post has received over 23,000 shares in the span of a weekend.